An aggressive smear campaign through 5 blatant kangaroo courts (see detail below) and the release of false and misleading information has been conducted by World Sailing. The false allegations leveled at Stephanie and Paul by World Sailing are too numerous to list here. They range from believable to utterly ridiculous. Examples include:

Stephanie sailed in violation of the Olympic gender requirements

ince 1980 the IOC have delegated to the sports federations, which includes World Sailing, the decision of whether or not women can compete in the Olympic events falling under each federation’s control. Prior to this change, Article 29 of the Olympic Charter stipulated the events in which women were ‘permitted’ to participate. World Sailing is the authority to provide guideleines for women’s participation in sailing events. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not exclude, or provide any guidelines that exlude, competitors based on their sex. They only exclude competitors where there is a competitive advantage (Oscar Pistorius v IAAF CAS 2008/A/1480). To do so would be at odds with the Olympic Charter:

“The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.”

No ‘Olympic gender requirements’ or similar document (as referred to in the Notice of Race) has been published by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in other words the requirements do not exist.

Stephanie sailed after being disqualified

Stephanie and Paul were never notified of disqualification. She was also denied the opportunity to present her case at the meeting convened with SYC, YV, the PRO and IJ. She was also denied the opportunity to be present and put her case forward in kangaroo court #1. Notwithstanding this, both of these meetings were conducted after she was disqualified from the regatta. This is a false allegation that was stated by jury chairman Douglas Sloan in kangaroo court #1. This was also spread anonymously online by someone in the IJ or with access to the IJ.

Paul falsified documents to hide the gender of Stephanie

This is a ludicrous claim by the IJ that was also found as a fact by subsequent kangaroo courts. Despite refusing to detail allegations against Paul, the IJ asked confusing and irrelevant questions, such as who's credit card was used to pay the online registration. They also presented the registration document which was signed by Paul as evidence of falsifying registration documents. The document was signed by Stephanie and her name was written as helm. Paul had to sign the document where it stated if the competitor was under the age of 18. The measuring document was also presented. Stephanie presented her gear for measuring and the form was completed with her name as helm. SYC, the PRO, YV, the race organisers and World Sailing were all fully aware Stephanie was competing in the 49er class and, were fully aware well before the event even started.

Paul refused to attend the second kangaroo court

It was constructively impossible for Paul to attend the hearing as he was not going to be afforded natural justice (procedural fairness). Sloan was asked numerous times whether Paul would be afforded procedural fairness. Sloan refused to respond a number of times. He then responds no on two occasions (as clearly heard in the audio recording):

The panel in kangaroo court #5 deliberately and maliciously published a false statement about this:

“Mr. Coady makes a number of statements regarding the protest hearings that are not supported by the audio recording. This reflects adversely on Mr. Coady's credibility and the reliability of statements he makes.” … “A review of the audio file referred does not reflect a response of “no”.”

Paul verbally abused the PRO and race officials

Sloan made a number of false allegations against Paul of abusing race officials. No evidence was provided to support these allegations. Paul never abused any race officials and no race officials were interviewed by any of the kangaroo courts. Paul did complain of Stephanie and him being verbally abused by the PRO well before any kangaroo courts were organised. Evidence supplied in the form of email and witness statements was ignored.

It was confirmed by the race organisers that no complaint had ever been lodged about Paul. In contrast two of the race officials have publicy supported Stephanie and Paul. Despite knowing this, World Sailing published the false allegations as facts.

 

The Sail Melbourne PRO and Juror Bill Bell originally targeted Stephanie with discrimination. After the meeting convened with the IJ, SYC and YV, Paul was targeted with a relentless campaign of victimisation to avoid addressing the formal complaint of discrimination and abuse of Stephanie.

World Sailing have deliberately released false and misleading information to the media and the public. World Sailing recently published a 60 page document from kangaroo court #5. Unfortunately the response to the lies and false allegations was never published.

Paul's reaction after kangaroo court #1 is predictable of any parent who's innocent child has been targeted and abused for no reason. Especially when a formal complaint had been lodged about this abuse and in response it was decided that defending this child's human rights was a violation of Rule 3.

Kangaroo Court #1

Paul was ambushed with a blatant kangaroo court by the International Jury. The Jury refused to detail the allegations against him, refused to allow him to call witnesses, refused to allow him to question witnesses, refused to provide a statement and put his case forward and ambushed him with information not available prior to the hearing. These points were also raised by one of the jury members and ignored by jury chairman Douglas Sloan. He was also found guilty of a gross breach of rule 3 of the RRS for asserting the human rights of Stephanie under the SDA. Sloan informed Paul they were going to conduct a gross misconduct hearing for sailing in the regatta with a female helm. Paul left the meeting in disgust.

Kangaroo Court #2

After Paul left kangaroo court #1 Jury Chairman Douglas Sloan ran after Paul into the SYC car park and hit him in the chest. Paul's reaction was predictable of any parent and a heated argument eventuated. Paul asked Sloan numerous times if he would be afforded procedural fairness in the hearing. Sloan responded no. On the basis of this Paul did not attend. The second hearing was conducted without Paul in attendance. Sloan acted as a judge in his own cause and found the argument started by him in the car park was gross misconduct and brought the sport into disrepute.

Kangaroo Court #3

The jury referred Paul to Yachting Australia (YA) for further disciplinary action. Paul put the facts forward to YA and stated that he could supply audio of the hearing if anything he said was disputed. Paul had already offered the audio to YV in response to false allegations made by the jury.

None of the contributing factors were taken into account in the investigation. Despite this, YA found that the punishment already metered out exceeded that of previous decisions, in particular the assault of an innocent cameraman by Ben Ainslie that resulted in a mere disqualification from two races. YA did not take any further action.

Kangaroo Court #4

Not happy with the decision of YA, World Sailing decided to conduct another kangaroo court. This was an unprecedented move and the basis for it unclear. It was not an appeal and, the RRS only authorise the conduct of a hearing by YA or World Sailing, not both.

Paul responded to the panel by stating that federal legal action had already started and that to proceed would be unlawful victimisation. The panel was held in abeyance and subsequently disbanded.

Kangaroo Court #5

The latest kangaroo court was started after David Tillet (a friend of Sail Melbourne juror Bill Bell and also a member of the previous kangaroo court panel) received from the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) a copy of Stephanie and Paul's complaint. In a successful attempt to discredit the case, an extremely aggressive kangaroo court was conducted.

All cases need to pass through the AHRC before being allowed to proceed to the Federal court. If there is no prospect of conciliation the AHRC must terminate the complaint to allow the case to proceed to the Federal court. In order to prevent the case proceeding to the Federal court, Tillet advised the AHRC that they needed to conduct another "investigation" before conciliation could proceed.

Despite four previous kangaroo courts, and the fact that the previous kangaroo courts were the subject of the victimisation complaint, the AHRC prevented the case from proceeding to the Federal court. The AHRC stated that the respondents did want to attend conciliation and that they needed the opportunity to investigate before conciliation. Numerous requests were made for termination of the complaint but the AHRC refused.

Despite supplying overwhelming evidence of blatant victimisation and abuse of process, the World Sailing panel decided that, although natural justice was not afforded to Paul, this was irrelevant as the panel could now conduct another kangaroo court (kangaroo court # 5) to fix the problem:

"Any procedural unfairness that might have occurred before that tribunal can be cured by Mr. Coady presenting his evidence and argument now."

Paul refused to respond to the panel as it was clearly another blatant kangaroo court. The panel took advantage of this to support false allegations by publishing statements such as "he did not deny this" or he "refused to supply this". Paul was forced into the kangaroo court.

Paul found himself in an endless cycle of answering false allegations. Although the allegations were always proven to be false, the disciplinary panel would then go back to Sloan to create more false allegations. At no time was Paul's submission addressed and, in reality, Paul's case was never actually heard.

The final response was again completely ignored by the panel and not even acknowledged.

Paul then submitted a further complaint to the AHRC for victimisation by the panel. Paul was contacted by the AHRC who complained that the further submission was preventing them from terminating the complaint on the basis of no prospect of conciliation. The AHRC had clearly prevented the case from proceeding to the Federal court, despite no prospect of conciliation, in order to allow World Sailing to conduct kangaroo court #5.

A 12 month ban was decided by the panel. Paul made numerous requests for the case to be referred to the Judicial Board or the Review Board. Paul even contacted the Review Board chairman directly. The chairman of the Review Board stated the case would be heard by either the new Judicial Board or the old Review Board. World Sailing have refused to forward the case to either board and have refused to provide the name of the Judicial Board chairman to allow Paul to forward the complaint directly.

Court of Arbitration for Sport

Paul appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Appeals division against WS and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). CAS Vice President Goran Petersson was the IOC member in charge of the Appeals division. Goran was also President of WS when the alleged gender requirements were introduced.

The panel consisted of an IOC member, a director of the company that was the registrar for the disciplinary action and a chairman appointed by the appeals division. IOC Legal Affairs argued the IOC did not approve Olympic events or gender requirements. Australian Sailing (AS) and WS supported this argument. This statement was clearly false although accepted by the CAS. This also prevented Stephanie from taking action against the IOC in the Federal court for approving the 2016 Olympic sailing program. John Coates is Chairman of IOC Legal Affairs.

A complaint of corruption was lodged by Paul to the IOC Ethics Commission. This included not only corruption in the CAS and World Sailing, but also evidence of serious criminal links of Dieter Neupert. Nieupert is the Chairman of the highest court of WS and currently Head of the WS Ethics Commission. A complaint was also lodged to the the CAS. John Coates is Chairman of the CAS. Paul was denied whistle-blower protection by the IOC and the CAS.

The CAS appeal was completely corrupt and dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. Although the decision has never been  published by the CAS, it was accepted as evidence by the Federal Circuit Court.